1. Field
The invention relates to surge suppression. More particularly, the invention relates to a surge suppression device having one or more rings.
2. Related Art
Communications equipment, such as cell towers, base stations, and mobile devices, are increasingly manufactured using small electronic components which are very vulnerable to damage from electrical surges. Surge variations in power and transmission line voltages, as well as noise, can change the frequency range of operation and can severely damage and/or destroy the communications equipment. Moreover, communications equipment can be very expensive to repair and replace.
There are many sources that can cause harmful electrical surges. One source is radio frequency (rf) interference that can be coupled to power and transmission lines from a multitude of sources. The power and transmission lines act as large antennas that may extend over several miles, thereby collecting a significant amount of rf noise power from such sources as radio broadcast antennas. Another harmful source is conductive noise, which is generated by communications equipment connected to the power and transmission lines and which is conducted along the power lines to the communications equipment to be protected. Still another source of harmful electrical surges is lightning. Lightning is a complex electromagnetic energy source having potentials estimated at from 5 million to 20 million volts and currents reaching thousands of amperes.
Many rf surge suppressors have been developed in the past to attenuate or block harmful electrical surges, power surges, and lightning strikes. These rf surge suppressors include electrical components such as capacitors, coils, gas tubes, and metal oxide varistors (MOVs). In order to achieve a consistent frequency range of operation, a low insertion loss, and a low voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR), the electrical components of these rf surge suppressors need to be manually tuned, which is imprecise and takes human labor to perform.
Ideally, what is needed is a rf and dc surge suppression device having a compact size, a low insertion loss, and a low VSWR that can protect hardware equipment from harmful electrical energy emitted from the above described sources.